Move over on the tanning bed, John Boehner; you might be having company in the form of current Florida governor Charlie Crist, who announced on Tuesday that he will abdicate his lofty position in Tallahassee for a job vacancy in Washington.

"After thoughtful consideration with my (beard) Carol, I have decided to run for US Senate" the golden boy declared in his official campaign press release. That's right, not a press conference. His people just faxed out a statement of intention to run. But his entry into the race has made waves nonetheless.

Jeb Bush, former Florida Governor and Bush brother who isn't a colossal fuckup, revealed earlier this year that he was not going to pursue the Senate seat, quite possibly because the surname Bush is now forever synonymous with the term "colossal fuckup".

Republican Senate Minority Leader and jowly corn puff Mitch McConnell has vowed to rally support for Crist, as the GOP needs a popular conservative to hold on to the seat of the retiring one-termer Mel Martinez. Former Florida House Speaker Marco (...Polo!) Rubio is already in the race and has attempted to claim the "true conservative" mantel by going to the right of Crist politically. Rubio compares his opponent to centrist Republicans Susan Collins and Olympia Snowe of Maine and turncoat Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania due to his robust support of President Obama's stimulus package and restoring the voting rights of felons, which may have cost John McCain the state's 27 electoral votes in the 2008 election. Here's another thing Crist has in common with the aforementioned politicians: in 2 years, they'll all be sitting senators and Marco will be back in Little Havana, still whining about a dead or indisposed Fidel Castro.

While Crist's almost inconspicuous entry was less than inspiring, at least he didn't make his campaign announcement via Spanish-language TV station Univision, as opposed to an English-speaking counterpart, like Rubio. Because nothing, of course, gets conservatives into your corner like giving preference to Espanol over Ingles. They love that. How long until the Florida Keys get a border wall? Do the hurricane-prone Keys even have levees? Or would those life-saving structures interfere with the 90 mile journey to capitalism undertaken by refugees in rafts comprised of milk cartons and masking tape? Side note to Mexicans: support Marxist dictatorship at home so the conservatives will let you into los Estados Unidos en masse! Worked for the Cubans, after all.

Crist, who unbelievably is only the second most burnt sienna-hued figure from Pinellas County behind Hulk Hogan, is nonetheless expected to win the Senate race. It'll keep a seat in the Republican column while slightly diminishing the overwhelming likelihood that the Democrats will have 60 filibuster-busting seats. It'll also give the donkeys their best chance at reclaiming the Florida governor's mansion in over a decade. But it will give the nakedly ambitious Crist a superb slingshot towards the 2016 Republican presidential nomination. His face may look like the leather upholstery in your grandpa's musty 1983 Lincoln Town Car, but it appears as though it isn't going away anytime soon.

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What Do You Think

Gay Marriage....

Is too important an issue for the Government to leave to the hands of the people... Should be a state's rights issue where the voice of the people will be heard... Isn't going to matter a hill of beans once the Chinese roll their tanks down the Pacific Coast Highway...